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Guest opinion: Pro-cycling in the wake of Lance Armstrong

By Steve Maxwell

Posted:
01/27/2013 01:00:00 AM MST

Doping has been so prevalent and tacitly accepted in pro cycling over the last two decades that virtually everyone has been caught up in it. The revelation of Lance Armstrong's vast doping conspiracy has returned this ugly issue to the front pages, once again impugning the integrity and endangering the economics of a beautiful sport. It is high time that this problem be squarely addressed.

The alternative to doping -- clean racing -- has too often meant just one thing to the cyclist: unemployment, a return to the beet fields of Spain or the factories of Italy. When seemingly everyone else is doping, even the most well-intentioned rider may bend under the pressure. And when doping becomes this pervasive, the athletes become little more than pawns in a corrupt system. Simply punishing the occasional rider who gets caught is neither fair nor, more critically, is it effective in solving the problem. Instead, there has to be a radical house-cleaning imposed on the whole sport -- the peloton, team owners, and regulators. It's already been demonstrated that approaching this dilemma in a half-hearted, piecemeal way won't solve the problem.

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Cycling must embark on a much more aggressive approach.

First, the sport must undertake a transformative amnesty or truth and reconciliation process -- a pardon for the many alongside a punishment for the few. This catharsis would include not only the riders, but also team managers and regulators -- some of whom are themselves former dopers, and whose unwillingness to address this issue is a root source of the problem. The process would be led by an external judge whose moral authority was above reproach -- someone in the mold of a George Mitchell -- who could take control and restore respectability to the sport, just as Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis did for baseball in the wake of the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal. Cycling's legacy of omerta could finally be broken, without fear of retribution.

Second, the sport must develop stronger economic incentives and a new business model. Particularly given its tarnished image, cycling can no longer afford to rely solely on commercial sponsorship for its financial base. Cycling must expand and diversify its revenue -- more lucrative TV rights, concurrent on-site events, merchandising, and greater "scarcity value" by shortening its long season. By adopting the franchise model of other successful sports, and building greater revenue to share, team owners would have a correspondingly greater economic incentive to protect the integrity of the sport.

Third, harsher punitive measures must be adopted. Athlete testing must be delegated to an independent, scientifically rigorous third party -- one which would stay a step ahead technologically and enforce the rules in a stern but consistent manner. There would be no exceptions -- as there have been in the past. Riders wouldn't be kicked out for doping -- whole teams might be, with potentially severe economic losses to both owners and sponsors. This would create a powerful incentive for the teams, and especially the riders -- who live together virtually 24-7 -- to police themselves.

Finally, more effective governance and leadership for the sport is a prerequisite for these initiatives to be realized. There is growing consensus that the Union Cycliste International may no longer be the right governing entity -- its purview too broad, its management style too opaque and its function too fraught with potential conflicts of interest. A new governing agency, headed by someone from outside the sport, would be focused solely on road racing, and should quickly develop stronger organizations to represent both the teams and the riders. A model based on the NFL and the NFL Players Association could have a very positive long-term impact on cycling.

Ultimately, all four key participants in cycling -- race organizers, team owners, riders, and the governing entity -- must sit down together and create a new business model for the sport. Following what other pro sports have already done, these key participants need to set aside their selfish interests, figure out how to grow the size of the overall "pie," and then more effectively share it for the benefit of the whole sport. Everyone will benefit from a bigger pie.

This is what cycling desperately needs -- wipe the slate clean, and then build the infrastructure to enforce a system of powerful economic incentives and harsh punitive measures going forward. Cycling has proclaimed a "fresh start" many times in the past; this time the sport has to make it stick.

Steve Maxwell is a business consultant, writer and cyclist in Boulder.

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